End products from one or more raw materials or raw products are produced in many industrial sectors such as, for example, the chemical, pharmaceutical or food processing industries. The raw products are mostly brought to the location or to the plant, in which the treatment and processing to form an intermediate product or end product is to take place, in receptacles such as sacks or else in firm containers, this being done in the form of bulk materials such as powder, granular material, fluid or similar.
However, substances such as these raw products are frequently present in a concentrated form which is damaging to the environment and/or health. For this reason, decanting or filling operations are carried out as far as possible so as to avoid contamination of the substance and/or the environment, and also to avoid health being endangered by the substance.
To this end, in EP 1 441 953 B1, for example, the receptacle in which the raw product is located is provided with a sealed docking device by means of which decanting or filling is carried out under so-called “total containment”, an environmentally isolated sealing being maintained. In this case, the docking device comprises a first coupling element which is connected to the receptacle, and a second coupling element or a docking element, which is intended to provide a sealing connection to the receptacle and from which the raw product supplied is to be decanted or filled. In this case, decanting through an interconnection of the two receptacles or containers via the coupling elements is performed by virtue of the fact that each coupling element can be elastically deformed in such a way that connecting openings are cleared only for the decanting.
In addition to the filling and decanting operations which—as mentioned—are to take place in an environmentally isolated fashion, it is also frequently necessary to analyze the supplied product, for example to analyze its composition, concentration, the degree of purity and the like. For this purpose, it has therefore been necessary to open the receptacle, in which case samples were removed as far as possible without heavy contamination and environmental damage, such that it was possible subsequently to examine them in an analytical laboratory. However, it was not possible in the case of that method of analysis to reliably prevent contamination and/or escape or release of the product to be analyzed.